The Circularity of Aquinas' Fifth Way

In a discussion with the Quantum Thomist, I made a statement to the effect that the Fifth Way of Aquinas exhibits circular reasoning.  The Fifth Way is one of Thomas Aquinas' five famous arguments for the existence of God.  It is also known as his Teleological Argument, or his Argument From Design.  It is based on the presumption of teleology in nature.  Of course, my claim that this argument is circular is something that Thomists don't like to hear.  Most dedicated Thomists are convinced beyond any doubt that the logic of Thomas Aquinas is beyond reproach.  The impeccable logic of Aquinas is the basis of their Thomistic philosophy and the foundation of their theistic belief.  How can someone like me (who isn't even formally educated in philosophy beyond Phil 101) take issue with such a master of logic and philosophical thought?  I will attempt to explain.

Feser Evades the Issue

Asking a theist to give a cogent explanation for anything is typically an exercise in frustration.  Most of the time, the best answer you can get is something that boils down to "God did it".  Of course, they don't put it in those words specifically.  There is always a certain amount of hand-waving and dissembling when you try to press them for details.  This rule of thumb applies regardless of what you may be seeking an explanation for.  If God is presumed to have any role in it, the theist will be hard-pressed to provide any technical details on exactly what kind of manipulations occur at the interface between the physical world and the divine.  And there's a reason for that.  Explanations of a detailed technical nature that involve God simply don't exist.  The best they can do is to use vague language or divert to another topic to cover up the lack of any specific details in their answers.

Rational Discussion With a Thomist

In my previous post, I attempted to show two things.  The first of these is that I understand a key concept that is part of the Thomistic cosmological argument - that is, what is meant by an "essentially ordered" causal series (or EOS).  This has been an area of contention, because they insist that I don't get it, and I am not alone in my ignorance - many atheists are similarly painted with this same brush, regardless of whether there is any truth to it.  The second thing is that regardless my acceptance of the meaning of this concept, it is still inconsistent with physical reality, and therefore, I reject the reality of the concept.  In response to this, Martin was good enough to make another post of his own to clarify his position and open up the topic for further discussion.  I congratulate him for his willingness to discuss something that has divided us for such a long time, and to try to clear the air in a rational manner.  To my surprise, I found that we couldn't even agree on something that I thought was already in agreement.

Being Brutally Honest

Let's face it.  The only truly honest Christians are those who lack a sophisticated philosophical understanding of their faith.  I noted in my previous post that faith, as practiced by ordinary believers, requires a resistance to any evidence that would subvert belief, and those ordinary believers who aren't philosophically-minded generally agree with that.  But it is the apologists who insist that faith is based on evidence.  The apologists are lying.  It is intellectually dishonest to say that their faith is based on evidence, and at the same time, steadfastly refuse to critically examine evidence that refutes belief.  But they have painted themselves into a philosophical corner, so to speak.  They can't honestly admit that they reject evidence and still claim the intellectual high ground.  So they take the path of intellectual dishonesty, in the hopes that most people aren't astute enough to see the truth about their philosophical stance.  And they even manage to fool themselves into believing their own lies, because, after all, faith really does trump reason.

Argument From Desire - Wishful Thinking

Ed Feser has made an interesting post on what he calls the "argument from desire", in which he rightly notes that there are different forms of the argument, and they aren't all successful.  Basically, the argument from desire, as commonly expressed by unsophisticated theists is not so much an argument for the existence of God as it is a reason for believing.  It is the acknowledgment that the idea of life coming to an end without any eternal reward or compensation for the pain endured while living in the physical world is depressing.  But according to Feser, if a more sophisticated form of the argument (ie, Thomistic) is considered, it may well be worthwhile.

A New Take on New Atheism

I was reading one of Ed Feser's recent posts, in which he takes his customary swipe at "New Atheists".  This time, he didn't criticize anything that a particular person said or did, holding it up as an example of the bad behavior that he so often decries among the breed of modern atheists that he so despises.  This time, Feser takes a pot-shot at the broader community of modern atheists who he thinks fail to understand the implications of their own beliefs in the manner that some of the "Old Atheists" like Nietzsche did.

Defending Bertrand Russell

What caused God?  To ask this question is to reveal yourself as horrendously ignorant and philosophically illiterate.  The sophisticated philosopher, whether theist or atheist, will assume that you are one of those

atheists who think “What caused God?” is some kind of “Gotcha” question for theists, as if they had never considered such objections before. - Lowder

This uncharitable interpretation applies whether you are just some stupid GNU like Richard Dawkins, or a highly regarded philosopher like David Hume or Bertrand Russell.  They're all ignorant for thinking that there is merit in asking a question like that.  Of course sophisticated philosophers of religion have considered this question and provided sophisticated answers.  But have they really answered in a way that settles the issue?  Maybe some of us just aren't satisfied with the answers we hear.  Maybe there's some justification in continuing to ask the question after all.

The Incongruity of Divine Simplicity

I previously discussed some problems with the Thomistic metaphysical concept of act and potency.  As expected, it resulted in lots of harsh commentary from the good folks at Feser's echo chamber.  One thing that didn't happen is any kind of cogent rebuttal to the issues I raised.  I am not arrogant enough to think that I am an expert on scholastic metaphysics, or to think that these issues haven't been raised before.  But I can say with confidence that they haven't been answered in a way that is intellectually satisfying to a scientifically-minded skeptic.  I raise these questions because in my opinion, they cast serious doubt on the whole enterprise, and all the explanations that have been offered are simply rationalizations.  The Thomist must live with some cognitive dissonance when he tries to explain how his metaphysics exists in harmony with modern science.

My next area of criticism is the concept of divine simplicity.  This is the notion that God is simple - that he is composed of no parts and has no complexity.  He is identical to his properties: simplicity, perfection, goodness, infinity, ubiquity, immutability, eternity, and unity.  God's is said to be unknowable except by analogy.  His intellect is utterly unlike the intellect of man.  And so we have some problems that demand an explanation.

Defending the Ivory Tower

Philosophers like Victor Reppert and Keith Parsons long for the good old days, when they could sit in their ivory tower and have cordial debates about esoteric philosophical arguments.  As long as the atheists in the room remained duly respectful and didn't push their own beliefs too hard, everything was fine.  And the atheist philosophers among them played the game.  Being educated in the intricacies of high-brow theistic philosophy, they could hold their own in these debates while being careful not to offend their religious counterparts.  The trick to this is pretending that all arguments deserve equal respect, as long as they are made by a member of the elitist club in the ivory tower.*

Philosophy of religion (POR) is quite unlike science or mathematics, where a hypothesis or proof of a theorem can be shown to be false, and once that is done, the community converges on an agreement that it is false, and abandons it.  In POR, when an argument is shown to be logically invalid, or its premises are unsupported by factual knowledge, there is no consensus in the community.  They simply divide themselves into camps that either agree with the argument or disagree with it.  But the cordial debate goes on in the ivory tower.  So while science and mathematics have made solid and beneficial contributions to the knowledge of mankind, POR really hasn't contributed anything tangible.  They just keep debating the same tired arguments, endlessly.

The Irrational Feser - Part 2: The Straw Man

In my previous post, I reviewed Ed Feser's review of Jerry Coyne's book, Faith versus Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible.  As reviews go, I thought it was lacking because it doesn't provide a sense of what Coyne's book actually discusses, nor does it provide a sense of the reviewer's response or assessment of those issues.  For example, in his book, Coyne discusses methods of inquiry, accommodationism, what it means to be incompatible.  He tackles issues such as the supposed design of the universe, the existence of altruism, and the inevitability of the course of evolution.  Little if any of this is even mentioned in Feser's review, which focuses instead on attacking Coyne's definitions of religion and faith, and accusing him of scientism.

The Irrational Feser - Part 1: The Review

I saw that Ed Feser wrote a review of Jerry Coyne's book, Faith versus Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible, which is posted in First Things, and I was interested to see how Feser would address the issues raised by Coyne.  Upon reading it, I realized that this "review" was little more than a diatribe against Coyne, and does little or nothing to satisfy the questions of someone who is interested in hearing arguments against Coyne's central thesis: that science and religion are incompatible.

Since it is a brief review, consisting of 12 paragraphs, I'll take a look at the the entire article here.

The Indeterminacy of Philosophical Thinking

Some time ago, I wrote about the need to use plain language and clearly defined terms in a philosophical argument.  One of the things I noted was: When I hear an argument stated with "weasel-words" or phrasing that is semantically impenetrable, that is a glaring signal to me that I should be on the lookout for an attempt to evade cold, hard deductive reasoning.  Such is the case with a paper that has recently come to my attention by James Ross called Immaterial Aspects of Thought.  This argument hinges on the meaning of the word 'determinate' (or 'indeterminate').  But the word is not at all clearly defined.  Ross summarizes the argument this way:

Some thinking (judgment) is determinate in a way no physical process can be. Consequently, such thinking cannot be (wholly) a physical process.

This has been restated by Feser as a syllogism:

(1) All formal thinking is determinate, but
(2) No physical process is determinate, so
(3) No formal thinking is a physical process.

When I read these statements, the first thing that strikes me is that it isn't immediately obvious what they're saying.  There needs to be a clear and unequivocal definition of the word 'determinate', or this argument won't hold water.

The Big Problem With Thomism

Edward Feser, perhaps the greatest proponent of Thomistic philosophy today, dismisses modern science-based cosmological theories, such as those of  Lawrence Krauss, as being ignorant of the one true philosophical tradition:

The reason God is necessary and the material universe is not is that he is pure actuality while the material universe is composed of potentiality and actuality, and thus in need of something to actualize it; that he is absolutely simple while the material universe is composite, and thus in need of something to compose it; and that his essence just is subsistent existence itself whereas material things (and indeed anything other than God) have an essence distinct from their acts of existence, and thus stand in need of something to cause them.  No doubt some atheists will be inclined simply to scoff at the metaphysical ideas underlying such arguments.  But to scoff at an argument is not to produce a rational criticism of it.  And since the arguments in question are the chief arguments in the Western tradition of philosophical theology, to fail to produce a rational criticism would simply be to fail to show that atheism really is rationally superior to that tradition. - Feser

Feser is, of course, entitled to his opinion.  But he seems to be unaware of any alternative metaphysical view that would be consistent with a modern scientific understanding, or he simply rejects such views out of hand because they don't support his theistic beliefs.

I believe that Thomistic philosophy is riddled with logical inconsistencies, and is based on assumptions that are epistemologically unjustified.  Perhaps I will devote a future article to some of those problems.  But what I would like to focus on in this article are the metaphysical foundations of Thomism.

Theists' Attitudes Toward Atheism

Ed Feser describes what he sees as the kinds of attitudes atheists hold toward religious beliefs and practices, and in the process, reveals a bit of his own attitude toward atheists.